Animal Companion, dying condition and initiative order

[Jack-Frost]

Hi all,

I'm GMing my first PF2e adventure path and one of the players has an animal companion. My understanding is that animal companions act on the same initiative role as the PC they are bonded with. I also am working under the assumption that animal companions can gain the dying condition. I've seen some debate about both of these topics, but I've come to the conclusion that, this is how I think it should be played.

My question is... what happens to the initiative order if the animal companion of a PC gains the dying condition? This happened in my last session and I moved the PC (and animal companion) in the initiative order (as they act as one). I've looked about but can't find any discussion on this.

Does this seem reasonable? I could split the companion off and move it in the initiative order, but then if it's healed it would no longer be acting on the same initiative as the PC and the move in initiative order should be permanent should it not?

Anyone know if their is a proper rule for this somewhere or is it a bit up for interpretation?

[shroudb]

The main reason for the Initiative change when you get dropped is to assure that the rest of the party has an opportunity to heal you before your character actually dies.

So, in the spirit of why that rule exists, I would make a judgment based on the current initiative order:
"Will the party have time to save the AC before it dies if I leave the initiative as it is, or should I move it?"

[Finoan]

Jack-Frost wrote:

I'm GMing my first PF2e adventure path and one of the players has an animal companion. My understanding is that animal companions act on the same initiative role as the PC they are bonded with. I also am working under the assumption that animal companions can gain the dying condition. I've seen some debate about both of these topics, but I've come to the conclusion that, this is how I think it should be played.

That is how I would recommend running it. For important NPCs you are allowed to use the Dying condition rules if you want. An Animal Companion isn't even really an NPC - it is mechanically a part of the player's character.

Jack-Frost wrote:

My question is... what happens to the initiative order if the animal companion of a PC gains the dying condition? This happened in my last session and I moved the PC (and animal companion) in the initiative order (as they act as one). I've looked about but can't find any discussion on this.

Does this seem reasonable?

That seems very reasonable as long as the player is happy with that idea as well.

It is important for both bookkeeping of turns and rounds as well as mechanics of things like the Minion trait that the PC and the Animal Companion have their turn at the same time.

I have not previously considered what to do about initiative if the Companion drops - I have never been faced with that scenario on either side of the GM screen. But your reasoning is absolutely sound. There is good reason for having the initiative changed, especially if the Companion dropped to a repeated damage effect like Persistent Damage.

One thing I would note is that since this is purely a game mechanics thing and is actually a bit unintuitive from a game narrative point of view, it may also be reasonable to let the player decide, and choose differently each time it happens, if they want to change their initiative order for the PC and Companion or keep their existing position. That would let the player make the tactical decision to choose whether to delay the Companion's Dying and end of round condition accounting to allow for more assistance, or to use their PCs actions as soon as possible to either end the battle or help their Companion sooner.